


good morning and good night

by satellites (brella)



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/satellites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’d made a pact not to do double-dates (if, Dick had said, Wally ever managed to score in the first place).</p>
            </blockquote>





	good morning and good night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [empressearwig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/empressearwig/gifts).



> 12 Days of Ficmas: Day 8  
> empressearwig requested: "Wally/Artemis and Dick/Zatanna, doubledate"

“No,” Wally says. “Absolutely not.”  
  
“I don’t say this often,” Artemis adds, “but I agree with Wally.”  
  
“You two are  _ridiculous_ ,” Dick exclaims, throwing his arms out. “It’s just one—”  
  
“Just one Thing-We-Made-A-Pact-to-Never-Do-Ever!” Wally interjects, sitting ramrod straight and pointing accusatorially at Dick. “Are you out of your mind?”  
  
“Calm down.” Artemis pats his arm without any concern whatsoever, trying to concentrate on Celebrity Hockey.  
  
Wally stares indignantly over at her, but she doesn’t react. He gives her one affronted scoff before turning to Dick again.  
  
“Okay,” he says slowly, raising his eyebrows. “Repeat what you just requested, and just  _try_  telling me you don’t understand how stupid it sounds.”  
  
“So supportive,” Dick sneers before sighing, dropping his head back. “Will you two do me the  _honor_  of coming to see a movie with me and Zatanna on Friday night?”  
  
“Double-date!” Wally shouts like he’s won something, pointing at Dick and jostling Artemis’s arm to get her attention. “Double-date! I call foul!”  
  
“Shut up,” Artemis says distractedly, punching him vaguely in the elbow. She finally tears her eyes away from the television screen and frowns dryly up at Dick. “Okay, Wonder Boy, so what you’re saying is you’re too chicken to take her out by yourself and you want us to be your wingmen?”  
  
“Wingman and Wally, yeah, basically,” Dick agrees in exasperation. That gets a snigger out of Artemis and a grimace out of Wally.  
  
“Dude,  _low_ ,” he whispers, sounding wounded.  
  
Dick rolls his eyes behind the sunglasses.  
  
“Look, I’ll pay,” he offers. “I’m rich, so I can do it.”  
  
Artemis lets out a  _pfft_  of laughter through her teeth.  
  
“ _No_ ,” Wally practically shouts.  
  
“Ignore him,” Artemis interrupts, clapping a hand over Wally’s mouth. “We’ll go.”  
  
Dick’s face splits into a grin and Wally starts yelling, muffled by Artemis’s palm.  
  
“Look, the conditions of that pact basically relied,” Dick pontificates in Wally’s direction, “on how we’d never have to worry because you’d never score. So really, this is your fault. Hasta la Friday!”  
  
“I scored,” Wally protests.  
  
“He scored!” Artemis shouts joyfully, pointing with her free finger at the TV.  
  
Dick cackles diabolically at his triumph. He’s out of the room ninja-style just in time to miss Artemis elbowing Wally in the cheek for, in a dazzling show of maturity, trying to lick her hand.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
“You’re seriously planning on taking a girl out wearing  _that_?” Dick exclaims, sounding appalled, when he convenes with Wally in the Cave’s kitchen on Friday night.  
  
Wally whirls on him, startled. “Dude, loud steps! This isn’t the freaking dojo!”  
  
“Sorry,” Dick giggles, not sounding sorry at all. “But really – if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were going to school.”  
  
Wally glances down at his usual combination of thermal shirt and open button-down with perplexedness.  
  
“So?” he mumbles, brow furrowing. “I don’t see you wearing anything different.”  
  
Dick shrugs, staring at the ceiling. “It’s in the brands.”  
  
Wally scoffs, rolling his eyes just in time for them to fall on Artemis and Zatanna as they stride in from the hallway.  
  
He freezes.  
  
“Dick, help,” he practically squeaks, staring at them with protuberant eyes. “They’re hot.”  
  
“Ease up on the plurals,” Dick grumbles, elbowing him.  
  
“Hot ladies,” Wally hisses. “Walking toward us. Toward you and me.  _Hot ones_.”  
  
“Who’s hot here, them or us?” Dick demands just loudly enough for Artemis and Zatanna to hear it.  
  
Zatanna immediately crosses her arms, cocking an eyebrow at Wally.  
  
“Is that seriously all the red carpet commentary we’re going to get?  _Nice_ , Wally,” she quips before linking arms with Dick. “Oh – and it’s definitely us,  _trust_  me.”  
  
Wally splutters. Artemis rolls her eyes and slings an arm across his shoulders, steering him toward the zeta tubes.  
  
“So what’re we seeing?” Artemis asks casually, tossing her ponytail over her shoulder at precisely the right angle for it to hit Wally in the face.  
  
“A movie with ninjas,” Dick replies breezily, expertly concealing his expression of amusement. “Ninja girls, ninja boyfriends—”  
  
Artemis halts in her tracks, one eye twitching.  
  
“I think one of them gets amnesia,” Dick muses innocently. “Or maybe that’s the sequel.”  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
“That was the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen,” Artemis says for the tenth time as they stride out of the theatre. Wally pats her shoulder placatingly. “They didn’t even kill anybody.”  
  
“At least the ninja boyfriend survived,” Dick sings.  
  
“At least  _I_  survived,” Zatanna says dryly. “I was hoping for something a little more James Bond.”  
  
“Next time,” Dick assures her, grinning.  
  
Zatanna returns the expression coolly.  
  
“If you’re lucky,” she says, and Wally and Artemis let out a simultaneous “ _Ohhhh_!”  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
It becomes more and more apparent over the course of the evening that, as Artemis so eloquently puts it, thirteen-year-old Dick Grayson is scared shitless of taking girls out on dates.  
  
“I don’t get it,” Wally mutters as he and Artemis walk about two steps behind Dick and Zatanna, whose arms are no longer linked. “Are you saying Dick and Zatanna are conspiring to try to make this the most cliché double date ever?”  
  
“No, genius,” Artemis huffs, whacking him upside the head. “Haven’t you noticed? First the stupid ninja movie, and now we’re getting burgers. This isn’t a  _double_  date. It’s for  _us_.”  
  
Wally blinks at her. “Oh.”  
  
“We’re just covering him so he doesn’t have to actually do any of the mushy stuff. He and Zatanna’ll make fun of us all night and that’s supposed to be romantic.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“Because,” Artemis explains coolly, “Dick Grayson, manwhore in the making, is scared shitless of taking girls out on dates.”  
  
“Oh,” Wally says blankly, and then, after a moment, “ _Oh_.”  
  
“So,” Artemis finishes before striding forward to slip between Dick and Zatanna, putting her arms around the both of them, “I say we get Italian.”  
  
Dick stares at her, looking panicked.  
  
Zatanna beams. “Italian sounds good.”  
  
  
  


* * *

 

  
  
  
“Italian sounds good,” Wally parrots cynically in a high-pitched voice, passing Artemis a plate. “Know what  _doesn’t_  sound good? My stupid best friend forgetting his stupid wallet.”  
  
“It wasn’t my fault!” Dick squawks. “Alfred must’ve rearranged the coats this morning! And  _you’re_  the one who had to have three stupid helpings of every stupid pasta dish!”  
  
“Poor babies,” Artemis mutters under her breath, seeming quite amused (and oddly accustomed to the dish-washing environment – Wally’s not about to ask why). “Zatanna, can you hand over the soap?”  
  
Zatanna chucks the bar of soap and misses her entirely, instead sending it crashing into Dick’s temple. Artemis guffaws and snorts, covering her mouth with one sudsy hand, and Wally adjusts his hairnet with enough primness to make Zatanna join her, and Dick looks like he’s about to cry.  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
“I think my feet are gonna fall of,” Zatanna grumbles. “And not in a fun way.”  
  
“There’s a fun way for your feet to fall off?” Wally mutters disbelievingly, but Zatanna doesn’t hear him.  
  
“Zeta tubes should be a couple more blocks,” Dick offers apologetically. “Just, uh, keep up the brisk trekking pace—”  
  
“How about I have the speedster carry me?” Zatanna proposes a bit more brusquely than she would if she weren’t fuming. “He can do that, right?”  
  
Wally puts his hands up defenselessly. “Uh, actually, my services are—”  
  
“I’ll carry you,” Artemis snickers, falling into step beside Zatanna.  
  
Zatanna manages to let out a small giggle.  
  
“Can you use your mad archer powers to get me away from a date with disaster?” she mumbles dejectedly, shooting a frown in Dick’s direction. “It’s…  _not_  exactly encouraging when your date doesn’t even have the cajones to take you out by himself.”  
  
“Yeah,” Artemis sighs neutrally. “Sucks. And, uh, I’ll give you plenty of room to think about that while Wally and I—”  
  
She swiftly takes a step back and grabs Wally by the elbow, yanking him in the opposite direction in some absurd parody of a sprint.  
  
“ _Run_!” she finishes. “Fight your own battles, Boy Wonder!”  
  
“I didn’t agree to this!” Wally yells, and once he’s managed to right himself enough to stay standing, they’re around the corner and out of sight.  
  
Zatanna gapes at their retreating forms, her arms slack at her sides. Dick blinks at the scene for a moment before clearing his throat and sidling closer to her, grimacing.  
  
“Sorry,” he says.  
  
Zatanna closes her mouth with a snap. She shakes her head before turning to him, like she hadn’t noticed he was there.  
  
“What?” she half-barks. Dick winces.  
  
“For the, uh, roundabout methods,” he continues, sounding flustered (and, okay, Zatanna can admit it’s kind of adorable). “Just because you talk backwards doesn’t mean I have to take you on backwards dates.”  
  
“That made no sense,” Zatanna sighs, hiding her smile. “But I forgive you.”  
  
Dick brightens, straightening up with an unbridled grin. She catches his eye, and lets her lips quirk up, pushing some loose hair behind her ear (and Dick has to try not to gulp, because he’s never seen something so –  _pretty_ , not even the stars).  
  
He offers her his arm. “Milady?”  
  
She folds her lips in pensively before swooping down and kissing him,  _adamantly_ , just the way she had on New Year’s, and it barely lasts long enough for him to gasp before she’s drawn away again, beaming all the way to her gums.  
  
She hooks her arm in his still-raised one (his reaction time has always been a little faulty).  
  
“You can buy me ice cream,” she decides. “And then we’re even.”  
  
“Even,” Dick says dazedly, smiling more goofily than Wally on any given day. “Yeah. Yes, ma’am.”  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
“Making out in an alleyway,” Wally mutters, smirking. “If I had a bucket list, this’d  _totally_  be at the top.”  
  
“Shut up, idiot; I think there’s a crackhead sleeping in the dumpster,” Artemis hisses, doing the job for him by covering his mouth with her own, her hands gripping his collar. They still smell like soap. He tangles his fingers in her hair and he’s pretty sure she’s laughing, her nose squished against his.  
  
If all double dates can end like this, Wally supposes he might be able to allow another one. (Minus the dish-washing, and the running, and the crackhead, but at least now no one can ever say he leads a dull life.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> WE DON’T EVEN HAVE TO TRY, IT’S ALWAYS A GOOD TIME! Cue the montage of endearing age-appropriate shenanigans.


End file.
